1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to file broadcast systems and, more particularly, to a process for confirming delivery of broadcast files.
2. Description of the Prior Art
File broadcast (FB) is used to transfer files from a centralized computing platform to one or more distributed platforms, as illustrated in FIG. 1A. It can be considered an application-layer service in the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. A file broadcast system transfers files from headquarter's computers 11 connected to a hub server 12 to computers 16 at branch offices through either a direct multidrop connection or a satellite network (VSAT) 14. When using a VSAT network, a file broadcast system can take advantage of the broadcast nature of satellite communications to greatly reduce the cost of transferring files that need to be sent to multiple locations. With such a network, a single broadcast of a file can be received in parallel by all sites requiring it.
The delivery of a file consists of several steps, shown in FIG. 1B. First, the headquarters computing platform 11 submits the file to be transmitted to a predefined directory on the hub server disk 12. Following the file, an envelope is transferred describing the file and the servers to receive the file. Second, hub equipment 13 serves as a conduit for transmissions from hub server 12 and broadcasts the file across a spacelink 14. This occurs once a file is made available to the hub server 12 and is required by one or more computing platforms 16. Third, file broadcast software at the receiving computing platform 16 performs requests for transmission and retransmission as necessary to receive the file. Local equipment 15 receives the transmission from spacelink 14 and serves as a conduit for further transmission to computing platform 16. Fourth, once the file is completely received, the file broadcast optionally performs post-processing, places the file into the addressed directory, and executes a command script if it is present.
However, under the prior art there is no central reporting of which sims received a file which is broadcast. This is due to a lack of a solution to reporting confirmations where some sites are linked to the central broadcast facility by a connectionless network. While a receiving site may request retransmission if a file does not load properly, in a connectionless network there may not be high level protocols available for confirming delivery.